Tuesday, December 25, 2007

GP Stuttgart is over, and we have a new leader for the Player of the Year race: Shuhei Nakamura, Japanese level five pro, is the winner of the first big batch of points this year. His unorthodox draft strategy took him to a win, with a deck that met very mixed reactions among the spectators. However, it’s hard to argue with success. His runner-up, Robert van Medevoort, failed to produce his Profane Command in the finals, but he had a pretty good deck (which you can of course find here in the coverage).

The host country Germany brought about half of all competitors to the trade fair in Sindelfingen, and two of them made Top 8. Marc Vogt had a remarkable run with a clean 12-0 and just one bye, and Raul Porojan made his second GP Top 8 after GP Strasbourg. We saw a number of old favorites, as well as some rising stars here in Strasbourg. Marijn Lybaert was among them, missing Top 8 by a hair. The Belgian kid was trumped only by his National champion Fried Meulders, who notched a Top 8 appearance on his virtual achievemets badge.

GP Stuttgart was the biggest individual Grand Prix this year, and just as big as GP Amsterdam. Lorwyn Limited is over as a format, because the next event in the Magic year will be the Morningtide prereleases. Stay tuned to magicthegathering.com, where we will pick up with the Player of the Year race after that, and see if Shuhei Nakamura defends his early lead across the many formats of Pro Tours and Grand Prix in 2008!//---------------------------------------------------------------//Name: Joel CalafellAge: 19Residence: Barcelona, SpainOccupation: Student

Number of GP Top 8s: 1

Number of PTs played: 4

Biggest Magic success: Top 16 at GP Bilbao 2005, co-designer of the deck "Cepmacio Breakfast" (not sure if this is a success)

Tournament result: 13-2

How did you prepare for the tournament? Made two drafts on MTGO the day before leaving

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Worlds has just ended and a three color Doran deck took the trophy home while mono-red Dragonstorm decks were a hit. However, I have noticed the major changes in the metagame include the absence of Cryptic Command decks and a lot of Black Green variations floating around. I can understand that, from the previous, that Monoblue had been consistently losing to Elves due to its speed and Treetop Village, and all Black Green decks featured those elements.

At one point, I was pretty sure I was going to play a Blue Control deck in Worlds, but since I found myself consistently losing to Elves, why not give it a try? The result was fantastic. Here is my exact Elf list that I piloted to a 4-1 result in Worlds;

As you can see, the Japanese always love their one-of cards plan in the deck. Sure, it will shine in some situations when you need it, but at times, it can be horrible or totally useless. I prefer a consistent plan and a direction to where I am heading to. One of the major differences between my list and Mori's are the Civic Wayfinder vs Troll Ascetic. I was initially using Troll Ascetic in my list, and then a friend of mine told me that some Black Green Elf deck uses Civic Wayfinder and asked me to try it out. It was wonderful. Not only does it give you easier access to black mana, it provides the very needed card advantage to fight battles of Attrition wars with a lot of decks that are designed to beat this kind of deck. Mori's list only played five mana producing elves while I had the full eight. I think the mana elf is really important to have in the opening grip, or else there is not much point in running them. There was even a point I had a Birds of Paradise as the 9th one mana elf in the deck, but I took it out for an additional Civic Wayfinder.

Cards that I ended up not playing;

Troll Ascetic - it is very good in the mirror, but doesn't do much against control. I underestimated the amount of mirror Black Green decks that appeared at Worlds, therefore I didn't run them. Also, it works very well along with Loxodon Warhammer. However, the aspects which I dislike about troll are not being an elf and requiring double green mana.

Loxodon Warhammer - As I tested the deck, I felt it often has an edge against other aggro decks in the field and Loxodon Warhammer is a win more card in this situation. I always ended up wanting for more creature removal to push damage instead of paying 6 mana and clinching some life. Nevertheless, it is a good card against aggro decks, especially mirror.

Nameless Inversion - Tarmogoyf, Bogardan Hellkite, Cloudtresher, Teferi, Guile, Mistbind Clique. These are the cards you simply can't kill with Nameless Inversion whereas Eyeblight's Ending will get the job done. I really don't mind paying the extra mana for the additional list of creatures that you can kill. The biggest downside of Eyeblight's Ending is that it never kills a Imperious Perfect, which could single-handedly win games on its own.

Elvish Champion - There were so many times I had lost because I had to hold Elvish Champion in hand against another Elf deck or its double green requirement. Believe it or not, double green mana is actually something you might not able to assemble in the early game. It also barely does anything against those Red decks and Blue White decks with a lot of mass removal.

This is your easiest matchup. Out of 10 games, sideboarded or pre-sideboard, you usually win 9 games. Cast your early critters to put pressure and use Thoughtseize to push for your other spells. Usually this is how it goes: turn 1 mana elves, turn 2 Thoughtseize and Tarmogoyf/ Vanquisher or either one of them combined with Treetop. If you are on the play and could play out a turn 2 Imperious Perfect, you have almost won the game. You can still play spells on turn 3, but never on turn 4. I always turn my guys sideways along with Treetop Village or Pendalhaven and said go. The purpose is to clog the control player's hand with counters. Sooner or later, they would have to respond to the board of creatures, and that is where you start unloading your spells. For example, they would need to cast the Teferi or Guile to defend themselves. At that point, you simply try to play the multiple threats in your hand and they can never use all those Counterspells in time. Play tight and you always win this matchup, trust me.

RG Mana Ramp-4 Imperious Perfect -1 Boreal Druid

+3 Shriekmaw +1 Nath of the Glit Leaf +1 Liliana Vess

Imperious Perfect is totally useless in this matchup. You never want to make guys with him in this matchup; in fact, he always turn sideways along with other elf for quick damage. Game 1 is tough, but if you have multiple Thoughtseize or their has a land heavy hand, which happens most of the time, you can keep pushing with reusable resources like Masked Admirer and Garruk. Speaking of Masked Admirer, this is the card that makes you stands a chance against all those designated Elf killer decks. Sure, Molten Disaster kills all your men, but as long as you kept 1 Llanowar Elf in hand and you have Masked Admirer in your graveyard, you can build up very fast again. I played 2 copies at first, then upped to 3, and finally decided to play 4 copies on the night before Worlds. The downside is, the plan costs a lot of mana though. That is why I chose to play Civic Wayfinder over Troll Ascetic because it supports the plan of Masked Admirer.

After boarding, you have more disruption. The big discarders (Nath and Liliana) is pretty good against any nonblue control decks. Shriekmaw clears the path of any annoying Wall of Roots, opposing Tarmogoyf and also answers late game Cloudtresher and Hellkites. Always try to keep an mana elves in hand if possible if you have a Masked Admirer. It helps a lot when you are rebuilding your force, which happens a lot of time.

Faeries (both UG and UB)-3 Garruk -1 Masked Admirer -4 Thoughtseize

+2 Cloudtresher +2 Serrated Arrows+4 Shriekmaw

Garruk is useless in this matchup, as you can never keep him long on the table. Thoughtseize is okay, but losing 2 life for trading a card is hefty in a matchup where both players are racing for damage. Masked Admirer is also pretty irrelevant in this matchup, but it is still slightly better than Thoughtseize or Garruk. If you plan to sideboard more heavily against Faeries, just take out remaining Masked Admirers. Game 1 is less favourable because they flies and you don't, simple as that.

Game 2 is more favourable because you have 4 one sided Wrath of God and 4 additional removals against their lord, Scion of Oona. Bait with some creatures and once you sensed that they are low on counters, go for Serrated Arrows and Cloudtresher (evoked most of the time) and those should win you games most of the time. Always play your cards rather than waiting because this is a tempo oriented matchup, where both players are looking to keep up creatures on board and denying opponent's resources with removals and counterspells.

This matchup is highly dependant on speed and acceleration, therefore never cut down on mana elves. You will find the board is pretty one sided if one has mana elf and another does not. The difference is in the elf mirror, Eyeblight is utter crap while it is good against the non-elf version of black green. Thoughtseize is equally bad on both matchup,so don't hesitate to side out all of them. It is pretty much you switched all 4 Thoughtseize for 4 Shriekmaw in the board. Nath and Liliana Vess is good because the matchup tend to be slower after sideboard with both players boarding in more removals. Do try to play around Damnation, because some Black Green did have them in sideboard. I mean, you don't have to expect all of your opponent has it, but if you have 2 guys on board and he has none, maybe you can attack with Treetop Village instead of casting the 3rd guy.

Explained above are all those matchups you will expect to face in the current environment. The only deck that I didn't explain is the Monored Dragonstorm, which my sideboard has nothing to board against them. Well, it is supposed to take the field by surprise, and I don't see any decks has prepared against it. I suppose playing cards like Riftsweeper helps a little and additional discards like Stupor gives you some time to kill them before they go off. But none of these directly hit them hard though. Nevertheless, it is a racing game between both decks and Thoughtseize hurts them a lot.

If I were to play the deck again, I would cut a Boreal Druid for a Swamp. I realized that the deck doesn't really lose games when it you has lands in play, but if you has too many mana elves and too little land, it can be a problem due to the massive amount of mass removals in the format. I think 7 mana elf is still a healthy number to go, but going down to 5 or 6 is just trying to cheat yourself. It is so much harder to play one on turn 1 if you keep reducing the numbers. I really like Profane Command as well, but I'm not sure if I would go 4 copies. If any of you really wants to play 4 copies, I recommend cutting a Garruk for it. Overall I like the sideboard a lot, because I have cards to board in for all matchups except for the new Dragonstorm deck. I might switch the Naturalize for Riftsweeper or Stupor for the matchup. Originally, Naturalize was there to fight those pesky UW control decks featuring Teferi's Moat and Story Circle on Modo, but I think those decks no longer survive in the current metagame filled with Dragonstorm decks.

I really liked the deck a lot and how fast games could be ended. My strategy for Worlds is play two aggro decks, because of the tight schedule of 5 constructed rounds and 3 rounds of limited for 2 consecutive ways. In this way, I was able to minimize my Stamina loss on constructed portion and able to concentrate more on the draft portion. Unfortunately, I screwed up in the draft, going 0-3 in the first pod, which hurts my chance of excelling in this tournament. Maybe I should start to practice more drafts and start all over from the bottom again.

Til then, may you enjoy beating down with these friendly elves!by Terry Soh

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

If you take the first or second peak Garruk Wildspeaker or Imperious Perfect (if you saw these draft top peaks, most likely you will take it over other), then you will just play green. These cards are really good not only in a deck on Elves, although there, too, but in their own right: Garruk simply wins the game (though it's best not to stand too early, and the first play "+1" ability to untap lands, to keep the bomb capable decide the game) because it is hard to kill, but to produce many tokens and let all creatures start in a decisive attack. A Imperious Perfect favorably differs from many other "Lords" that does not necessarily to draft just Elves: he is able to create and deliver an opponent a lot of trouble, if the couple of turn he will be in game. But certainly if it will be drafted with fellows that would be great! There is also good elves such as Elf Masked Admirers and Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, and the Wren's Run Packmaster (although it is desirable to play it on the table when there are at least two Elf to avoid early death), but these are rares and you will see them rarely. Turning to the less rare cards.

Without decent common Elves would not be at draft worthy archetype, but fortunately, we have the present man-Lys Alana Huntmaster. Not all value it highly, and often as not they walk very first peaks. But this at least Filler 3 / 3 for 4 mana (albeit with a double cost) as well as a maximum-much more. If you drafted at least two or three later than the middle of the second booster, start taking strong Elf, no regret. Namely: such a remarkable ambush as Gilt-Leaf Ambush, such a decent second drop, and the source of the second Green mana, as Leaf Glider; and searcher Elvish Harbringer (although he had already uncommon) is not redundant. They and of themselves good, and if we are on the table worth Chief Hunter Liz-Alany, all together elves able to show the enemy the sky of diamonds. Slightly less good but still are a variant of such cards, as Gilt-Leaf Seer and Moonglove Winnower. Removal plus Elf-Eyeblight's Ending, do not miss. Remember, too, Elf-simulator, so much the second time elven color-black, among others please note card such as Nameless Inversion. Average quality changeling(type Woodland Changeling), add to taste, to make land, place and start to deliver the arm. If you can recruit a significant portion of listed above (commons and at least one decent rare Perfect either), then I guarantee that your opponents will have to behold. But it is quite possible, even likely that entirely you will not be able to collect on the deck of Elf. There is no afraid. Consider first that can be added to the green (the primary color of elvish deck) and black (the second most important elvish color). Just want to say banal: add a good card, tentatively draft them. But try to indicate what would be the most preferable, given the shortcomings lacks. What are their weaknesses? Well, on the ground, ideally it is not simply equal percentage, but fly elves do not know how. Here we can help flyer blockers, like Cloudcrown Oak, but perhaps more effective removal prove, and if you have a lot of Nameless Inversion and Eyeblight's Ending, but you have to take Shriekmaw, and its add-its draft bomb. Removal on draft generally acclaimed, and in combination with Elf removal winding up the mountain, and removing flyers not giving another dangerous archetype - Merfolks-collect their kombs: they comb with each other today, we will soon! Regarding Merfolks: it is more than true, because, even if you gather on the ground and fantastic and gigantic army, but will not be enough removal, Merfolks, combined simply do not let you win. If, for example, the Goblin, all on the contrary, will kill many of our creatures, so try to get at any price advantage on the cards. Here we help these cards as Ambush, which raises two Elves for a spell; also try, if there is a time and mana to the Chief Hunter Liz-Alany and on the same play during another one or two Elf; then, and even if Hunter murder, we have to get him the advantage. Yet sometimes hinder armies of Elves may removal massive, but I do not recall many such draft LLL effective cards, is that the white team, but before it even have to live (and draft it is not easy: it is the CRP, in addition, to build on it a deck is not always).

As collect Elves: that it is possible to add other colors.

If you draft Elves, green draft you must, however, it may become more of you are not black; il in the third color want to leave. What to do? Tell you. To call will only commons as most often catches cards; uncommons royalties, and still we will most likely mainly flowers / primary colors. Well, first of all, remind about Changeling in many colors other creatures and other worthy of this type will not enumerate. Changeling addition, however, there are other cards in blue, for example, because we need to stop flyers, come tappers (Stonybrook Angler), its flyers (well, if ambush instance, Persermite but not Time Glen-Elendry worse card), but as soon flyers will tap (alone or our efforts), Glimmerdust Nap reassure them. Ponder help get it main Elf. And just blue Common, which falls in love (almost) draft Deck with blue, and the Janjaweed and drifter - Mulldrifter. What exactly blue advised not to play, it is Captivating Glance too unreliable card. Consider the red-here we have not tappers, and indeed flyers a little, but how come removal Lash Out Consuming Burnfire and to a lesser extent (as kills fewer hazardous substance) Tarfire. But black removal usually more universal, and fishing blow of Elf, we need not always so, and not too often they add red-faced is it that if you really drafted lot of these cards and relatively decent creatues, including Changeling creatures. And quite a bit of white. Clearly deserve a place in a deck (of commons) Oblivion Ring and tapper-Kithkin mana for 1 white, but as a good alternative-drifter enemy flyer - Plover Knights (though here and double COST, but doublecolored deck with a large number of mana stabilization-can) . A final touch-the artifacts. Moonglove Extract is not tied to the color removal-finishing blow - slow motion, can be put. And great card and for doublecolored decks doubly Wanderer's Twig. It will save you from the flood and screw. Just play it. 1-2 pieces. Well, thanks for reading. I wish success to Lorwyn draft on Elves!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The first Pro Tour Qualifier of the Pro Tour-Hollywood qualifying season has come and gone at Worlds this year and if you've already missed it you're doing yourself a disservice. Here's a link for you lazy kids who weren't watching the Worlds coverage this weekend. Take a moment to review while the res to of us wait…

Notice anything? If you said “those decks are all mopey mid-range decks!” give yourself a pat on the back. As is often common with early-season PTQs players opted to try to hedge their bets against all of the decks with aggressive plans in the format by playing answers to everything, hoping to hit the right ones at the right time. That worked for Matt Mar, but today we're going to talk about strategies which seek to find holes in that plan.

The first question on most people's minds when they look at the Springleaf version of Affinity is “why the Drums?” That's probably fair, so let's break down what the card does for the deck.

First, as a mana fixer and a mana source the card can count as a pseudo-land, something things like Chromatic Star simply are unable to do. This lets us cut to 18 actual lands as we really want to start with two lands in our hand and never see a third. It also, as mentioned, fixes our mana but the most important thing it does is speed the deck up as an accelerant.

“But isn't that what Paradise Mantle does? No one's playing that, are they?”

Yes and no. No one is playing Paradise Mantle in their Affinity lists on any competitive level, but Springleaf Drum and Mantle function in two entirely separate ways. Picture the two cards as separate means of buying a new car. Paradise Mantle lets you buy the new car with no down payment! All you have to do is make a high monthly payment over time, but for right now you get to drive your car home off the lot (never mind that over the long term you'll be paying more in interest). Springleaf Drum, on the other hand, is akin to buying the car up front; you pay the full price now taking a bigger chunk out of your immediate income but over the long term you save a ton of money (mana) by not having to make payments.

Let's look at an example to help clarify that analogy a little:

Turn 1: You play an Artifact Land, an Ornithopter, and Springleaf Drum. Tap Ornithopter and Drum and play Drum, Chromatic Star, or Arcbound Worker plus every Frogmite you were able to draw.Turn 2: You have access to at least two mana, likely three, and can do something like the following: play a land, tap Arcbound Worker and both lands for three mana, play Cranial Plating, Equip, and put your opponent dead on turn 3.

Or, with the Paradise Mantle:

Turn 1: Land, Ornithopter, Paradise Mantle. Either play Frogmite(s)/Arcbound Worker/Chromatic Sphere or equip Paradise Mantle.Turn 2: Use one mana to equip Mantle netting you even on mana for the investment and having access to two total mana if you've got your second land.

The Springleaf Drum then helps us go off a little bit faster, speeding the deck up by .5-1 turns. Getting us the rest of the way? So glad you asked…

The Art of Going Big

Most of the decks in the Top 8 at the PTQ Hollywood at Worlds were mopey midrange control decks with varied answers for a varied field of perceived threats which get bogged down in trying to be universally good and lose focus of what they're actually supposed to be doing. Such circumstances are perfect for decks with concise, aggressive plans to dominate while the three and four color Rock decks try to figure out their behind from their head. Additionally the existence of Enduring Ideals also merits ticking up Affinity's aggressiveness a tad to have a shot game 1. Even by doing so we're still a little bit of a dog, but the two cards that help make up some of the distance for us? Fatal Frenzy and Atog.

So, why add the red cards? No two cards in the format make you as aggressive as Frenzy and Atog, particularly in conjunction with one another. Shrapnel Blast will always do 5, but it's hard to imagine a spot in which Fatal Frenzy doesn't do at least that much. Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Atog, all are excellent targets for the Berserk and sometimes simply playing it on Myr Enforcer to trample the last points through is enough for a win.

So, what do the red cards do for Affinity? Simply put they speed the deck back up. They force the format to keep things honest and they help us play around Ancient Grudge. People can't sit back and be mopey with Ravenous Baloth or hoping to Gifts into a Pernicious Deed lock when you can just kill them on turn 4, blockers or no. The red cards force them to take Affinity seriously and try to interact with us and anyone who doesn't get that memo before the first weekend of PTQs will have their head spinning from 19/20 trampling Atogs.

Furthermore the Frenzy is a surprise (well, it is right now anyway). Players may be smart enough to play around Shrapnel Blast but most won't have Fatal Frenzy on their mind and as a result the card becomes a total blowout whenever it hits. No longer is clogging down the board with blockers an answer to Affinity.

Tips and Tricks

-Play the Ornithopter first. This trick dates to the first Affinity lists when players would run obscene amounts of artifact removal maindeck trying to blow an opponent out with “spot removal.” The trick then was to play Ornithopter before playing Arcbound Worker. If your opponent had the trick for the Worker, you'd still get the modular counter moved over to your 0/2. Few players so aggressively blow up the 1/1 these days, but it's still a good idea to play the ‘Thopter first.

-Should you play Nexus? It's always tempting to run artifact lands onto the board as soon as you draw them in the hopes of finding some type of Affinity spell off the top of your deck so it's much cheaper to play, but ask yourself how much cheaper the spell will be than if you open with Nexus. If you can open with Nexus as your land you will be able to attack with it on turn 2, creating an artifact. If your opener is Nexus, Thopter, Springleaf Drum and you plan on following up with an artifact land the Nexus, activated, will still give you four artifacts in play for free Frogmites or, tapping Thopter/Nexus with Drum, the correct amount of mana for Thoughtcast. The only card you couldn't play for its completely reduced cost in that scenario is Myr Enforcer so think things through. Is getting an extra point in with Nexus good enough to merit the possibility of not playing turn 2 Myr Enforcer if it's there?

-Play around Smother. In fact, it will do you well to study PTQ lists closely and determine what probable removal your opponent may have that can mess up your “go big” plans on something like Atog, Ravager, or Fatal Frenzy. Is Gifts Rock running Smother and/or Putrefy? Or are they more likely to simply have Ancient Grudge? What about Chase Rare Control? What removal spells are they running? Study and know these things so you have a better idea of when it's safe to “go off” and/or whether or not you should wait.

Sideboard

When we re-visited Skred Red a few weeks back we left off a 15 card sideboard per se because the format hadn't been nailed down just yet. Extended is the same way, though there are some cards which contribute to what you're trying to do. Thorn of Amethyst and Tormod's Crypt are the best at what they do in disrupting your opponent and being artifacts, perfect for our goals. Crypt might not be as necessary considering Dredge is unlikely to start the season as very popular but it does fit the bill of a focused aggressive deck with a tight plan, perfect for mopey mid-range metagames.

The Thorn is good against decks like Heartbeat or TEPs, but neither of those are seeing much play either. It has also been suggested against Enduring Ideals, but I actually like Ronom Unicorn for that job. If they have Pernicious Deed maindeck and can go off with 40 mana on their epic turn, you're sunk no matter what but slowrolling the bear to get their desperation Solitary Confinement, as is more often the case, seems like a total blowout, particularly when you consider the Epic deck is actually only about one turn faster than Springleaf Affinity.

From there things are kind of debatable at your leisure. Tarmogoyf is a possible inclusion against other Tarmogoyf decks though I'd probably prefer Moriok Rigger and re-working the manabase as the Rigger fits into your plans while the ‘Goyf is just “good.” Ancient Grudge is another excellent consideration for things like Scepter Chant and the mirror. Meddling Mage and Gaddock Teeg are bandied about as possible solutions to “things” but both seem too prohibitive cost-wise to actually make the cut. Hitting two specific colored mana at the same time seems a bit hard to swallow and again both cards seem “good” instead of helping the plan, unlike Crypt and Thorn. If the first PTQ were tomorrow and I had to have my sideboard turned in right now, here's how it would look:

We're about one month out from the actual kick off of the PTQ Hollywood season, and players seem excited to finally get a crack at a constructed format at the PTQ level. Who can blame them, it's been a while. As the season progresses decks like Springleaf Affinity will likely grow out of favor as the format adapts and cards like Atog and Fatal Frenzy no longer catch players off guard, but for the early weeks of the season (as it was last year) Affinity is an excellent solution to the format. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we look at some matchup breakdowns with fresher PTQ lists and changes necessary for the deck to survive over the course of the season.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

OK. So Worlds is finally over and after many battles between dueling Vanquishers, Siege-Gang Commanders and Garruk Wildspeakers, one man, Uri Peleg, was able to weather the storm and take home the trophy with a funky little B/G/w deck whose primary selling point was its ability to bust out a fat 5/5 treefolk on the second turn. (No, I'm not talking about Sheltering Ancient… although I've been told that that card combos pretty well with the Oni of Wild Places Avatar)

In the top 8, Peleg was able to easily dispatch Katsuhiro Mori in three straight games and then take out Kotaro Otsuka 3-1 before facing the Innovator in the Grand Final. This was a matchup between Doran, the Siege Tower and Mono-Red Dragonstorm and, although I was cheering for Chapin all the way, Peleg was ultimately able to emerge victorious in just four games because, you know, Hypnotic Specter can, like, block…

But now that all that's over, the one important thing that we must not forget to do is analyze the aftermath of Worlds and try to deduce the shape of the standard landscape. Whose stocks have gone up? Whose have crashed? What deck should you play at your next Friday Night Magic?

Well, to put it simply, in terms of decks there were three big winners at worlds: Gilt-Leaf Palace, Karplusan Forest, and Spinerock Knoll… let's take a look at each of these in turn.

Public Enemy Number One: Gilt-Leaf Palace

It does not take a genius to work out that the most successful decks to come out of Worlds are those powered by the Elf Dual land Gilt-Leaf Palace. Not only did a variant of the deck (splashing white for Doran, the Siege Tower) win the whole tournament but FIVE players in the Top 8 had the Black/Green land in their deck (Giving us a grand total of 19 copies!). Now of course, one has to always be a little wary of a statistic like this since Worlds is a multi-format event and as such it is quite possible to make the Top8 without having a good standard result. But if you just look a little closer then you'll see that all of the B/G decks in the top 8 posted excellent results in the standard portion of the swiss: Katsuhiro Mori, Yo****aka Nakano and Christoph Huber all went 5-0 while Roel van Heeswijk and Uri Peleg were able to put up a similarly impressive 4-1.

What then, is the formula for success for these G/B decks? Well, like all “Good Stuff” decks, these G/B lists play the best possible cards at every point in the curve, mixing efficient creatures like Tarmogoyf, top notch removal like Shriekmaw, hand disruption in the form of Thoughtseize and card advantage generated by the undeniably powerful planeswalkers so that what we have in a end is a mish-mash of questions and answers. It does not focus on controlling the board or attacking the opponent but is perfectly capable of doing both, playing the role of midrange control against aggressive decks and aggro control against control decks.

As such, all the G/B decks in the top8, although different, are actually built upon the same skeleton. Indeed, all you have to do is

Play FOUR Thoughtseize (Hand disruption)Add some Tarmogoyf (Efficient creature)Add some Eyeblight's Endings and Profane Commands (Removal)Add some Garruk Wildspeakers (Card advantage)Add some Other Creatures (maybe some Trolls, maybe some Trees)Add some Other Removal (Shriekmaw, Nameless Inversion and friends)Add some Other Card Advantage (Ohran Viper and Masked Admirers are the default)Add some Land (but don't forget 4x Treetop Village!)Top it all off with some Mana Elves or Birds to accelerate your curve.

Voila!

Run along now, you've got yourself a G/B deck.

OK. OK. It's not as simple as that. In fact, it's a whole lot more complicated since the major selling point of these G/B decks is their ultimate flexibility. And so, while the cores of these decks remain the same throughout, the peripheral cards are endlessly customizable. You can play certain cards over others to give the deck a different feel and indeed, from just the Top8 alone, one can easily spot three distinct archetypes (B/G Elves, B/G Rock and B/G/w Doran), each with their own game plans, strategies and matchups.

B/G Elves

Of these three archetypes, B/G Elves is the most aggressive of the bunch. In fact, this deck is so aggressive that calling it midrange would probably be a misnomer and indeed, the single thing that distinguishes this list from the others is the noticeable paucity of removal; the deck does not run Shriekmaw while the slow but powerful Liliana Vess has also been relegated to the sideboard. Instead, the deck is built around the various tribal synergies, which means that it is capable of consistently casting Wren's Run Vanquisher, the best aggressive two drop this side of Tarmogoyf, on turn two (When Wizards first published the 5-0 Standard decklists, there was a misprint on Mori's and Nakano's decklists. Instead of having Wren's Run Vanquisher, the decks were listed as running a playset of Wren's Run Packmaster. This is of course ludicrous since Wren's Run Vanquisher is the stones while Wren's Run Packmaster is a piece of s#*t.). In fact, one can even argue that it is better than Tarmogoyf since while Tarmogoyf is obviously a better creature in general, the Vanquisher is almost always a bigger, better and more aggressive play on turn two. Indeed, apart from being a 3/3, which is already above average for a two drop, the Wren's Run Vanquisher is also blessed with Deathtouch which is surprisingly relevant. This means that it can not only attack into Wall of Roots without having to worry about being blocked but it also means that it can also hold off much larger, more expensive creatures like Tarmogoyf and Doran, the Siege Tower. This ability to trade with anything that decides to tussle with it in combat also means that you can fearlessly attack into anything. Whereas a Phyrexian Ironfoot can easily hold of a Call of the Herd Token by himself, such a stop sign does not affect the Vanquisher at all. Similarly, whereas a Call Token is loath to attack into five untapped Islands, Vanquisher laughs at the possible of Teferi and charges ahead anyway. Furthermore, in the three-drop slot, the deck also runs the more aggressive Troll Ascetic over the card-advantage generating Ohran Viper while it is also the only deck of the three to pack a full set of Profane Commands, giving the deck some much needed reach.

What this ultimately means is that Elves is a more aggro-control version of G/B; Vanquisher, Tarmogoyf and Troll Ascetic together combine to make quite a fast clock while Thoughtseize does the discard duty. It thus has an excellent matchup against permission decks like Sonic Boom as the winning combination of discard + cheap threats can easily Overload the opposing deck's countermagic. On top of this, due to the faster speed of the deck, G/B Elves is also much better suited towards dealing with tempo strategies like U/B Mannequin and combo decks like Mono-Red Dragonstorm when compared with a slower deck like G/B Rock.

The downside to the deck of course is that it lacks midrange power. This does not mean that it is bad against aggressive beatdown decks. In fact, G/B Elves are actually quite good against aggressive decks since its creatures, like Tarmogoyf and Troll, are not only hard to get through but Imperious Perfect is also particularly excellent at breaking stalemates (which often occur when your opponent has multiple goblins tokens from Mogg War Marshalls and Siege-Gang Commanders). Furthermore, the deck does have access to some excellent sideboard options in the form of Razormane Masticore, Slaughter Pact and Loxodon Warhammer. However, what this lack of midrange power does mean is that it can easily fall prey to slower, board control strategies. Indeed, Mori's build of Elves lacks the incremental card advantage provided by cards like Shriekmaw and the third copy of Garruk Wildspeaker (unlike the other G/B decks, Elves only runs two copies of Garruk) which means that it has a lot of trouble keeping up with the slower more controlling G/B Rock lists. On top of this, its lack of powerful late game options also means that it, compared to G/B Rock, is not as good at dealing with removal heavy anti-beatdown decks like U/W Martyr. Indeed, the matchup is nigh unwinnable until postboard when Liliana Vess will come in to give the deck some extra staying power.

The other disadvantage of the deck is the fact that the tribal synergies actually impose some pretty heavy restrictions on particular card choices. Indeed, just as a deck in Legacy will need about 20 Blue Cards to be able to support Force of Will, the G/B Elves deck needs a similar number of Elves (Mori runs 19 Elves in his deck) to be able to consistently cast a turn two Vanquisher. This requirement actually leads to some deckbuilding decisions that many might find baffling. A lot of people have already commented upon the singleton maindeck Mirri the Cursed, describing it as “hella random” and asking why it is there. The problem here however, is that they are asking the wrong question: instead of asking why there is a single copy of the Vampire Cat, they should instead by asking why there aren't MORE copies of the Vampire Cat. Indeed, Mirri the Cursed fits the deck's aggro control strategy quite well. As it has flying, it is great at bypassing roadblocks like Wall of Roots, Phyrexian Ironfoot and Tarmogoyf while the fact that it has first strike means that it will always win in combat against any of the fliers in U/B Mannequin. Furthermore, as it is a Black creature, it is completely immune to Shriekmaw while the fact that it has haste (kind of like a Neo-Solifuge) makes it a perfect aggressive response to a board sweeper like Damnation or Molten Disaster. Thus, it can be said that Mirri the Cursed is the perfect four drop for the deck and we definitely would be playing more if the deck did not require 19-20 Elves to function properly. As such, the deck is forced to run an alternate four drop instead that is an elf; and while although Masked Admirers is undeniably a great card, strategically, it fits much better in a more midrange deck like Huber's G/B Rock. The question as to why Mori has only THREE! Tarmogoyfs and THREE! Troll Ascetics in his deck instead of the full four can also be similarly answered in this manner.

No, it's not because our former World Champion doesn't own a playset.

G/B Rock

Another possible archetype based on the Black and the Green is the more traditional Rock deck. Although the deck runs many of the same cards as G/B Elves, the feel of the deck is completely different. This is because the players who create and pilot these Rock decks have made the conscious decision to give up the power of Wren's Run Vanquisher. Such a decision ultimately has two consequences. Firstly, it means that these decks will not be able to come out very aggressively at all since there are no Black/Green two drops in the current format that are in any way comparable to Vanquisher. Indeed, a turn two Tarmogoyf will often not get beyond Squire stats without assistance from a card like Looter il-Kor, Tarfire or Augur of Skulls. The second consequence of this decision is that the act of eschewing the powerful Vanquisher has the effect of freeing up a lot of deck space. Now the deck no longer has to be filled with substandard elves just to satisfy the elf count but can instead play cards which are better all round (of course, Huber must keep some elves in his deck so as to not have Gilt-Leaf Palace always come into play tapped. But since Gilt-Leaf Palace, unlike Wren's Run Vanquisher, can still be played even if you do not have an Elf to reveal, there is no need to run an extremely large number of them). A simple example of this is how Huber runs 2x Birds of Paradise instead of 1x Boreal Druid and 1x Civic Wayfinder. One of the biggest advantages of freeing up of deck space, of course, is that it grants the Rock player the opportunity to play Shriekmaw. Now that the removal slots no longer have to be taken up by cards which are also elves, Huber can play the insane 187 machine which, of course, completely changes the shape of the deck and its accompanying strategy. Instead of playing out like an Aggro-Control deck, Huber's slower Rock list is much more similar to a midrange control deck that aims to two-for-one the opponent into oblivion with cards that generate small incremental card advantage. As such, more aggressive options like Troll Ascetic are replaced by cards like Ohran Viper, which performs the double role of providing card advantage and defending against opposing Tarmogoyfs, while cards like Masked Admirers fit into the deck perfectly despite the lack of tribal synergies. Indeed, compared to Mori's list, Huber's deck has a much better late game with the curve topping at THREE! copies of Liliana Vess.

Yet this however, is not a decklist that is completely without weaknesses. Although the deck is quite strong against both beatdown decks and should be able to take out slow decks with Liliana Vess, one of the things that you will have noticed about the list is that it is exceedingly fair. Indeed, none of its cards do anything particularly broken and as such, its relative slowness compared to Elves necessary means that it will have a hard time keeping up with a deck like Dragonstorm (Ohran Viper is not exactly the scariest beatdown card). Thoughtseize is generally not enough to win the game unless you also have pressure and this deck will often be incapable of generating enough early pressure unless it has access to a very early Garruk.

Furthermore, as the spells that B/G Rock utilizes are relatively more expensive than the spells in B/G Elves, the Rock deck does run the risk that it will get out-tempoed by either permission or bounce. Indeed, the deck has a terrible matchup against U/B Mannequin as the deck has no real way to regain the tempo lost from bounce effects (Not to mention the fact that many of the cards in Rock are basically inferior versions of Mannequins card—Viper is basically an inferior Finkel while Mulldrifter is usually better than Masked Admirers). Permission is also a problem since what will often happen is that a blue deck will be able to trade a 2 or 3 mana counter for a 4 or 5 mana spell and indeed, unless the Rock player has turn 2 Ohran Viper on the play, the Sonic Boom player is a huge favorite. This of course, explains why Huber has anti-Blue cards in his SB like Eyes of the Wisent while Mori's Elves list does not.

Apart from the possibility of losing to tempo, the final weakness of the B/G Rock deck is that it is actually possible to get out-midranged by a bigger and badder curve. Although the Rock player can gain card advantage at any point in his curve which tops with the very impressive Liliana Vess, some decks are capable of doing better than just merely two-for-one. Indeed, some decks will just continually trade spells with you and then suddenly play a couple of three for ones in succession: a Harmonize into a Siege-Gang Commander and then a Bogardan Hellkite. Shriekmaw is good, but it is after all, only a two-for-one.

The other problem with Shriekmaw is that it is a card that gets progressively worse as the format develops. Indeed, players are often prepared for it and are designing their decks in such a way so as to avoid getting wrecked by it. Back at States, Shriekmaw could kill anything and everything, but now, cards like Phyrexian Ironfoot, Doran the Siege Tower, Nath the Gilt Leaf and Siege-Gang Commander are seeing more and more play.

Uri Peleg's Doran list is actually a very interesting case. While Mori's Elves list could be said to lean more towards Aggro-Control and while Huber's Rock list could be said to lean more towards Mid-range, Peleg's Doran list tries to get the best of both worlds. On the one hand, it can play Aggro-Control since although it does not have access to Wren's Run Vanquisher it can nevertheless generate a blisteringly fast clock by playing Doran the Siege Tower on turn two (Doran is basically Vanquisher +2). This is a potentially fatal threat for the opponent and is extremely difficult to answer. In fact, Doran is nigh unkillable due to the fact that he is a Black creature with more than 3 toughness (this makes him immune to Incinerate, Nameless Inversion, Shriekmaw, Slaughter Pact etc) and unless the opponent is able to muster up an Eyeblight's Ending or an Oblivion Ring very quickly, the Treefolk Shaman will most likely go all the way. When this is backed up by Thoughtseizes and Tarmogoyfs into Planeswalkers, a control deck will have a difficult time keeping up.

Yet on the other hand, Peleg's Doran deck is also able to play midrange control. As he is not burdened by the restriction of having to play 19-20 Elves in his deck, he is able to fill his deck with strong mid-endgame cards like Shriekmaw and Liliana Vess and Nath of the Gilt Leaf from Sideboard. Doran himself is also a great midrange creature since he is so huge and so efficient for his cost that he will almost always lead to a 2 for 1 against beatdown decks. Peleg's 3-0 thrashing of Mori's Elves deck is a testament as to how strong a midrange deck the Doran deck can be.

But then again, nothing is perfect and the one glaring weakness that his deck has is the mana base. Doran costs GWB and is fiendishly difficult to cast. And although Peleg has done an excellent job on the mana, resisting the temptation to play any White cards other than Doran himself, the deck nevertheless still has some consistency issues and mulligans more often than either G/B Elves and G/B Rock.

But then again… that's just the price you pay for power…Part two is coming soon so stay tuned!by Kuan-Kuan Tian

As the Lorwyn Sealed PTQ comes to a close, I must say, I'm disappointed. Not with the format, but with myself. I was hoping to follow up my States win with a bang, traveling to a total of four PTQs and one GP with the hopes of qualifying for my first Pro Tour. After hitting up Grand Prix Daytona and PTQs in Madison, Daytona Beach, Indianapolis, and Chicago, a record of 17-12-1 is all I have to show for the season.

Whether or not I like to admit it, I'm a Constructed player. For every sanctioned Limited event I've played in, I have played in three Constructed events. I played Magic for about three years before I even tried Sealed for the first time, four before my first Draft.

I still have so much to learn!

I loved Lorwyn Limited, but my overall record was not much better than a coin flip. Out of five tournaments, I think I had two awful pools, one decent pool, and two good pools. Correspondingly, I went a combined 4-5 on my awful pools, 3-2 with my mediocre pool, and 10-5-1 with my good pools. I felt like I legitimately had a shot at qualifying with both pools, and I have nothing to blame but my deck construction skills and my poor combat skills. However, I simply can't help but feel that way too much of Sealed, particularly Lorwyn Sealed, is luck. Card values fluctuate so much in a tribal-based format. Judge of Currents, Elvish Promenade, or Blind-Spot Giant all go from unplayable chaff to auto-includes, depending on the random breakdown of playable creatures you have. This, however, is the precise reason why I like Draft in this format so much, because you have some level of control over the number of great Elves or whatever in your pool. This in turn favors prepared drafters who can reliably expect something like Elvish Promenade to table. However, as far as Sealed goes, I've seen players with pools where Smokebraider casts every creature in the deck, or a pool with Summon the School, Drowner of Secrets, and three Judge of Currents. If the uncommons were missing, then the only non-Judge Merfolk the deck would have would be a Paperfin Rascal and a Merrow Harbinger. If that were the case, the pool would not only be down two uncommons, but down three playable commons.

Other players I've talked to maintain more optimism about the format. Bill Stark is convinced that the better you are at Constructed deck construction, the better you are at Sealed; but more crucially, the key skills for Constructed are developed during Sealed Deck season. Chad Casarotto, the second best performing player in our group this season this side of David Gleicher, finished tenth at the Chicago PTQ. His optimism is much more interesting than my general bafflement at the Sealed season. Since no one likes to read a bad beat story, my final article before we dive head-first into Extended season will be guest author'd by Chad Casarotto. Enjoy!

The morning of the 1st, Matthias, Peter, Mike and I all get in Mike's car and drive from Hyde Park to Pastimes. Little traffic and a new route allow us to get there around 9:15 with plenty of time to kill before the start of the tournament. We go and sit with David Gleicher and the rest of the crew from the north side Evil Squirrel Comics. There, David is looking over a “sealed pool” he made out of 5 boosters. After building a deck, what to do with it? Play it against Mike's new extended Affinity build of course! Well, a straight up match wouldn't be fair, so we discuss alternatives. The first match was played Invitational-style with David on the play with 8 cards and 25 life and Mike with 6 cards and 15 life. That difference wasn't nearly enough, so the next game was played with both players at 7/20 but David got to play two turns for every one turn Mike got with Affinity. To some people's surprise, the sealed deck won both games played (one with Mike on the play). It was a nice lesson of how mana and card advantage can trump card quality. Also Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile is quite effective against Affinity.

The Chicago PTQ itself was a bit smaller than most in the area (156 people/8 rounds) probably because of the weather forecast for the day. It ended up snowing and then raining and freezing later. It was basically a disgusting day overall. Inside the venue we sat down registered our pools and then after the swap I ended up with the following pool:

When I first looked at the pool, I initially dismissed white because the powerful cards I saw were Cloudgoat Ranger, Harrier and Balloonist and the only removal was Neck Snap (which I'm not a big fan of). Once I did that, I was pretty depressed about my pool. I knew that I was going to at least splash black because Shriekmaw was the second best card in my pool after Chandra (and he's barely worse at that). After that I was having trouble finding decks with enough creatures. In the end, I pretty much decided that either White or Black was going to need to be a main color because of the number of playable creatures there.

In the end, I decided on a build that suits my play style. I'm a naturally aggressive player so building around Domen Gate suits that style better than any other card. My natural inclination is to turn my men sideways, unless I see a very good reason against doing so. Dolmen Gate makes turning men sideways almost always the correct play. Once I committed to this strategy, most of the deck was pretty easy to put together.

The only build mistakes I'm sure of involve the mana base. I never activated the Spinerock Knoll all day. It felt like a total win more card, but I can see a few times when it would be good. The problem with it compared to the other Hideaway lands is that you are very restricted to when you can use it. The only time you can use it is after combat damage has been dealt on your turn. All of the other lands can be used during all phases of the game and can also directly affect combat by providing a trick or a surprise blocker. Also, by the time you are dealing 7 damage, most of the time you have the game won or you have enough mana out where you aren't really gaining tempo through the Knoll. This basically reduces it to a possible draw a card effect. In addition to all of those reasons why the Knoll isn't so great is that it comes into play tapped, something I wanted to reduce in my deck. That is why I didn't play either of the Vivids. Speaking of the Vivids, I was wishing I had more colored sources, especially black, all day, so I think the correct mana base was: - 1 Knoll, - 1 Plains, + 1 Mountain, + 1 Vivid Creek/Grove. I could see playing both Vivids instead of that Mountain, but it's tough.

One of the things I wish I could have fit into my deck was Timber Protector. He's obviously solid as a 4/6 for 5 that can occasionally pump some dudes, but the real reason I wanted to fit him in was his interaction with Blades of Velis Vel. The blowout possibilities from throwing some of your dorks into the red zone and then giving two of them +3/+1 and indestructible seem immense. Also, Rebellion of the Flamekin along with Sentry Oak were also quite interesting. If I would have had another Rebellion or an Entangling Trap, I would have probably fit those in to go with all of the clashing I have in my deck.

I'll mention my thoughts on some other cards as we go through the tournament, but while we are discussing builds, I want to mention a totally different build of my pool. After round 6, my buddy Matthias and I were looking over my pool and Sam Black, one of Midwest's low-level pros, comes over and hijacks my pool and comes up with the following build:

The first thing to say about this deck is that I think that the overall card quality involved in this pool is higher, but there isn't as much focus as far as a game plan goes. It's basically just play some good cards with some tricks and card advantage and hope that gets you there. Maybe that's okay when you are a good player, but as far as play skill goes, I think I'm probably pretty average. Also, this deck doesn't suit my play style as well. I don't think I play some cards here well, specifically Pestermite. Nearly every time I've played it, it feels like I tapped the wrong thing or played it at the wrong time. I love throwing it out there turn 3 on the play to disrupt their mana, but it's probably not right as much as I want it to be. Anyway, I think this is an acceptable build, but I don't think it's quite the right one, and I know it definitely wasn't the right build for me to play.

So much for that; let's get on to the tournament.

Round 1:Opponent – Mike (?)I'm sorry if I got your name wrong, I forgot to write it down. My opponent is one of the regulars at Evil Squirrel Comics, and he's basically playing BG Elves and other stuff.

Game 1I win the die roll and play first. This week it seemed like everyone was choosing to play first even though a lot of people in Madison and most people in Daytona chose to draw. Personally, I think that drawing is correct most of the time except when you have or are facing a very dedicated beatdown deck (like the one I was playing).I lead with a Stalactite and Cenn's Heir and then Dolmen Gate and Springjack Knight, while he plays a Branchbender and Huntmaster. I get in for a couple damage and then play Kinsbaile Balloonist. He was clearly going to be my route to victory so the key play of the game was when I equipped my Ballooinst and then swung with the team. He tries to Eyeblight's the now-elfin Balloonist. Whoops. He follows with a couple of more dudes, including Changeling Titan, but when I dropped Cloudgoat Ranger, he couldn't contain the flying beats backed up by Springjack Knight.

Game 2:We both mull to 6 cards and I keep a really slow but powerful hand of Chandra, Dolmen Gate, Searblades and 3 land. We both start slow and he gets a team of Grey Ogres while I get the chain of elementals (Soulbright, Igniter, Searblades). I then drop Chandra and ping him for 1. He doesn't have any removal so he has to start getting aggressive or his guys are just going to get super-Flame Waved. We trade some dudes, I get Chandra to 9 counters before I get the next two guys he played. He plays a Branchbender against my Searblades. I swing and he chooses not to block so I Blades my guy to get in for 4 and Chandra him for the last point.

I want to mention how much I love 4 toughness guys in this format. Most guys are 3 power or less, and 3 of the common removal spells (Tarfire, Nameless Inversion, Lash Out) don't deal with them. I've been consistently happy with Oaken Brawler and Ceaseless Searblades when they have been nothing more than reachless Giant Spiders (there needs to be a good name for the generic 2/4 for 3C; I guess Foot Soldiers is the only real option).1-0 (2-0)

Round 2:Opponent – Matthias Dean-CarpenterApparently DCI Reporter thinks I've got a penchant for playing against my close friends. This is the 3rd time in 7 big tournaments that I've played one of the 3 other guys I came with. I guess it's bound to happen more and more the better we get. We decide that I have a noticeably better deck, so he'll scoop to me, but we decide to play until Mike and Peter finish their rounds so we can all get some lunch.

Game 1My notes aren't great, but he was playing UWb fliers and removal. I think I just get too many guys out and possibly Ballooinst while his Changeling Hero and Pestermite are not enough to stop my army.

Game 2I mull to a 2 land 6 card hand and then get stuck at 3 lands for a while and he flies over me and I get to my 4 drops too late to save myself.

Game 3We start this game and I get some dudes down and get him down to 6 before Mike and Peter are done with their matches. I'm still at 20, so he scoops and we go to lunch.

2-0 (4-1)

Round 3:Opponent – TylerGame 1I get Dolmen Gate down and start beating face, but then he comes up with a pretty good answer for my ground team: Thoughtweft Trio. With no removal in sight, I am able to get him down to 4, but then I make a misplay when I allow a hit to get me down to 3 when think I can swarm him and win with Blades, only to forget that Thoughtweft Trio can block any number of creatures. I thought it could block 3, like a three-headed giant or something. Anyway, I don't attack when I realize this, but then he has the Wings of Velis Vel for the win.

Lessons learned here: 1) RTFC and 2) probably don't want to get below 4 life if at all possible in this format. You never know when someone will throw Giant's Ire or Wings of Velis Vel at you.

Game 2We are both fairly slow, getting guys down and then I play Chandra and kill his flier and attack with my Balloonist, leaving my other guys back to block. Then he drops Ajani on me. Instead of pumping his couple dudes and attacking, taking out at least one of my blockers and keeping his guys alive, he decides to gain 2 life to try and save Ajani from my Balloonist and passenger. Luckily for me he did that. Next turn I was able to drop 2 more blockers and then attack Ajani for 2 in the air and ping him with Chandra. He then gains 2 more life and I am able to kill it next turn with fliers and kill his Harrier that he just played with Chandra. Then he plays Jace and draws a card. I attack it again with my Balloonist and hit him for 1. Finally he is out of cards and I start killing more of his guys with Chandra while attacking him through the air. He finally succumbs.

Game 3He mulligans to 6 and then gets stuck on 2 lands. This is one of the main reasons I think playing aggro in sealed is good if your pool can support it. Sealed decks often have tough mana requirements so if you have a deck that can punish opponents for bad draws, you will win some games where your opponent may have better cards than you. The life totals for this game went: 20 – 18 – 11 – 2.

3-0 (6-2)

I don't remember too much about this match or the next one.

Round 4Opponent – Jasper

Game 1He never really gets his green mana and has to ship Lignify to the bottom during a clash. He ORings my Shriekmaw, but he's already done his job. My team is big enough to Overwhelm him.

Game 2This game is going along swimmingly attacking him down to 14 before dropping Shriekmaw to kill his Ballooinist that was getting me in the air. I have a Harrier and a Cloudgoat Ranger as well. He drops a Pilferers as well to slow my Shriekmaw. I'm basically in a situation where I have to tap down his Pilferers to get in with Shriekmaw because his Ethereal Whiskergill is holding off my Cloudgoat Ranger, and I can't tap out everyone to get in for 5 because he'll get in too much on the counterattack. I do this and then he ORings my Cloudgoat and starts to beat with fliers. I am unable to race him as I draw at least 6 consecutive lands. Final land/spell count: 13/6.

Game 3I'm stupid enough to keep a 5 land hand and then end up getting rolled over by his fast start. I get a Soulbright (which gets killed) and an Igniter. But then I draw some more land and both of my black cards with no black mana. So I lose that one to a bit of flood, a bit of color screw and a bad mulligan decision.

3-1 (7-4)

Round 5:Opponent – Raymond

Game 1:Raymond has your typical UW deck. I've got guys and he's got Judge of Currents, Douser, Changeling Hero and Glen Elandra Pranksters. He is unable to stop a couple double-strike hits from Springjack and then has no blockers for Shriekmaw that takes out Changeling Hero while I keep his Douser occupied with other guys.

Game 2:Dolmen Gate is still good even though he has non-blocking ways of stopping damage. He has Judge and Douser again, but the Attrition war finally does him in. I have Cloudgoat Ranger and Wizened Cenn with other guys on the board and it's too much when he can't destroy them.

4-1 (9-4)

Round 6:Opponent – Adrian SullivanMatthias played him earlier, so I knew he was mostly green Elves with some Black removal and some harbingers.

Game 1:I win the giant coin flip and choose to go first. I lay Dolmen Gate and a Springjack Knight and he counters with a 1/1 Jagged-Scar Archers. I attack him for 4 after Cloudgoat Ranger shows himself on the top of my deck. He plays Treefolk Harbinger getting Changling Titan. He ends up with Titan and a 2/2 Archers in play. I have Cloudgoat Ranger and keep attacking. He removes my Ranger on his turn. Then I get my second red source and play Chandra. He's at 7 life so I know that he can't afford to attack back at Chandra, so I deal 4 damage to the 2/2 Archers in case he has a Fistful of Force and then must win the clash to save the Archers. He then only has the Titan and can't block enough guys.

Game 2:Adrian boards into UBw later saying that he needed ways of dealing with Chandra and Dolmen Gate so he needed counterspells. When I notice that he is making a transformational sideboard I stop boarding out Eyeblight's Ending that is clearly bad against Elves. He starts our slow and then I play a couple of Grizzly Bears and Moonglove Extract. He baits my Moonglove Extract with Mirror Entity, which is fine with me. He then plays Pilferers to get it back, but while he taps out for this, I drop Cloudgoat Ranger which goes the distance.

5-1 (11-4)

Round 7Opponent – Michael Dove

Game 1My deck is totally outmatched in this round. In Game 1, he compiles Angler, Reejerey and Galepowder Mage by turn 4 and then Nameless Inversions whatever big guy I played. He also has Veteran of the Depths, which allows him to kill me without taking a point of damage.

Game 2On the play, I am able to get some early pressure and with Dolmen Gate, I am able to get him down to 4 before he drops Wydwen. Luckily for me, his life was too low for her to be particularly effective. He was able to save his guys a few times with Glen Elandra Pranksters, but died a couple turns later from the swarm.

Game 3I don't have any real notes about this game, but as far as I remember, it was similar to the first game. This time I was able to get some early beats before his superior card quality did me in.

5-2 (12-6)

If I had won that round I could have almost surely drawn in, but I could still win and get the measly 6 packs that Pastimes gave for 9th-16th place.

Round 8Opponent – ConradI get to play a third guy I know. I've played him a couple times before and he's come to the University of Chicago to draft before.

Game 1He has a slow but bomby BG deck. I'm able to get some guys down and deal some damage before we have some guys trade with him at 8 and I drop Cloudgoat Ranger on a board where I have a 2 power guy and he has Masked Admirers. He then Weed Strangles it and wins the clash to bring him to 11. I then drop Wizened Cenn and swing for 6 with my 2/2 Kithkin tokens. He then casts Final Revels wiping the board. Then I drop a 3/2 Adder-Staff and he plays Woodland Guidance getting back Final Revels but doesn't get the clash and I end up winning.

Game 2We both start slow and I have Dolmen Gate out and play a couple guys. He drops Dauntless Dourbark and Weed Strangles my 3/2 Adder-Staff. I then Lash Out his 3/3 Dourbark; we clash and he reveals Vigor and I reveal Eyeblight's Ending, the perfect answer. Later I drop Cloudgoat Ranger and equip my Stalactite to it and get through for 6 in the air. He then plays Hornet Harrasser. I attack again bringing him to 9. He then casts Profane Command for 4 getting my Ranger and returning his Dourbark. I use Eyeblight's Ending on his Dourbark, then use Extract on my turn to take out his Harasser and then equipping and swinging for 3. Next turn he plays Vigor and I have Chandra to do 6 Vigor. Then I attack bringing him to 3 and he can't Recover.

6-2 (14-6)

No 6-2 player made top 8, and I ended up in 10th place and 6 packs. I'm fairly happy with how the day went. I got to play a fun deck to a higher finish than the deck probably deserves. I got to play against (and beat) a famous magic player and writer. All in all, a good day.

So now I'm going to talk about a few of the cards I played with and my impressions of them in the format.

Cenn's Heir – I think one of the reasons I did well was because I probably only drew this guy in probably 3 or 4 games I played. But I also was able to use all of the clash cards to put cards like this on the bottom of my library. I used to think that clash was better for the defending player, but it can also help the aggro player get to his bombs to finish off the other player in sealed.

Hillcomber Giant – I doubt anyone noticed, but I didn't play against a deck playing mountains all day. This was unfortunate because as an unblockable 3/3, this guy is amazing, but for me he was pretty bad.

Cloudgoat Ranger – I knew this guy was good, but I think he's now pretty close to a bomb. Even if they have the removal for him, you've gotten rid of a removal card and 3 1/1s for 5 mana. Barring something like Plover Knights or Ethereal Whiskergill, this guy ends the game pretty quickly.

Inner-Flame Acolyte – I thought this guy would just be a 4/2 haste guy, but I actually pumped other guys with his ability much more often. When the ground was gummed up I was able to pump a flier to get in more damage. So basically he was much more versatile than I expect.

Chandra Nalaar – I think that she is totally amazing in limited. At worst she is 6 to a creature or a slow Cone of Flame; at best, she totally warps the way the game is being played. If you can just kill their evasion guys, then they must make unfavorable attacks just so she doesn't wrath their board, but in doing so you gain a bunch of card advantage. If you are behind she can stabilize and buy you time; if the game is even, your opponent needs an immediate answer in order to survive and if you are ahead, she puts the game out of reach. There aren't too many cards you can say that about. Also, since she has such high loyalty, you don't need to coddle her by leaving all of your guys back either. All in all, I think she's the card I most want to open in the future.

Other people keep saying that in order to win you must want it, or even think you deserve it, but my best two finishes (10th here and top 8 at the Block PTQ in Louisville) have been when I didn't put any pressure on myself to do well because I didn't expect to. Some people just respond to pressure in different ways.

There is a beauty and a danger to the current status quo, to holding the World Championships at the end of the year, after States and Champs, after Standard has been allowed to germinate for a few weeks on Magic Online. For many spectators, enthusiasts, fans of the game and tournament players both, the coming of the Pro Tour—a Constructed Pro Tour in particular—is a special event. We sit at home, login to magicthegathering.com, and wonder, wide-eyed, what these geniuses will do next.

There is a danger to it. In the old days, Team CMU could spring their mono-blue decks on the metagame, or Tinker-Waters would make the red-green "anti-" decks look silly. But these days, that wonder of the Pro Tour dances precariously on the tip of a raised needle. Remember last year? Most of the undefeated Standard decks were Boros variants, some a little different than others, but nothing awe-inspiring. I suppose that onetime Player of the Year and onetime best deck designer on the planet Gabriel Nassif and his tag team partner Mark Herberholz did us spectators a solid with that Martyr-Tron deck... but the accomplishment was ultimately overshadowed by eventual 2006 winner Dragonstorm.

Ah, Dragonstorm!There is a beauty to the positioning of the World Championships, too. Remember two years ago, the first of Katsuhiro Mori's three consecutive Top 8s, the one he won? A unified cadre of Japanese players cracked the metagame with their green-white Ghazi-Glare deck, crashing through the tournament, placing numerous paragons into the elimination rounds, and eventually taking the crown. They were able to gaze long into the metagame established by Champs, the sea of Tide Stars and Hinders in those virgin days before the universal adoption of Remand, and really and truly dominate with the two least offensive colors in the history of competitive Magic. They had transformative sideboards, powerful threats, and even maindeck enchantment kill! Wow. Bam! Bravo.

This year's World Championships showcased a new Standard deck of such legend, excitement, and explosiveness that its long shadow hangs over even the format-solving Ghazi-Glare. This deck, a Dragonstorm update innovated by the ingenious deck design triumvirate of Pat Chapin, Gabriel Nassif, and Mark Herberholz is likely the most dominating single-tournament deck since Team ABU put four eventual victims of Zvi Mowshowitz into the Top 8 of Pro Tour–Tokyo.

Rumor has it that a prototype of this strategy had been espied in a side event at Grand Prix–Daytona Beach. Chapin, innovator of the Korlash Standard deck, the man who put Sligh on the Pro Tour map way back in 1996, and a Constructed Grand Prix finalist, was given a simple directive and a short list of scribbled-down cards: play Dragonstorm with Spinerock Knoll. Go!

Pat hybridized the Dragonstorm combo with a Pyromancer's Swath burn strategy (which had a huge amount of natural overlap with Spinerock Knoll) and played the maximum number of Fungal Reaches and Molten Slagheaps. The deck also has a great deal of misdirection to it: Chapin is a popular columnist at StarCityGames.com, and the week before Worlds, he wrote about an unrelated Skred Red update. He was able to bluff one opponent with Snow-Covered Mountain, who played tentatively (as against a board control deck) but was handed a nasty surprise with the explosive Dragonstorm kill.

So how does this new metagame monster work?

Spinerock Knoll is a corner piece to the strategy. This land is basically an Impulse, and allows the mono-red Dragonstorm to play like a "blue" deck. Ideally you will put Dragonstorm under a first-turn Spinerock Knoll. On the second turn you can, say, suspend a Rift Bolt. On the third, you warp in the Rift Bolt for 3, play a third land, play Rite of Flame for a pair of Shocks or Tarfires, and, having fulfilled the 7 damage requirement, reveal the Dragonstorm for another 20.

Of course the deck can just suspend Lotus Blooms, play Rite of Flame, rip counters off the Fungal Reaches, and run out Dragonstorm (or Empty the Warrens, or Ignite Memories) "per normal."

The third plan is to set up mana into a Pyromancer's Swath and a couple of burn cards... With the trademark enchantment in play, you don't need very many.

The Dragonstorm deck is extremely resilient, but all of its pilots expressed a vulnerability to the color black (and unfortunately both Nassif and Chapin had quarterfinals opponents with Thoughtseize and more)... but Wheel of Fate can dig the Dragonstorm players out of even a stack of Stupors. Not only is that card the natural enemy of cheap discard, it is a perfect card to have warping in the turn after you've moved in with Pyromancer's Swath.So why so dominant? We've seen decks with three or even four copies in the Top 8 of major events before, and you can kind of argue that there were five similar decks in this year's Top 8, whereas Dragonstorm at the World Championships could boast only two... However, typically, for every deck that does well, even decks that defy statistics or perform above and beyond expectation at the end of a big event, there are ten failures scattered throughout the room... Except for Dragonstorm. The deck was extremely impressive, and Chapin, who was staying at Jon Finkel's apartment in New York, was able to infect all his roommates with the fire. Ultimately Dave Williams, Mark Herberbolz, Amiel Tenenbaum, and Finkel himself all finished 4–1 in Standard along with Chapin and Nassif. Bob Maher brought up the rear with a lone—but still better-than-even—3–2. That was it. One 3–2 record in a room filled with the best players in the world, with almost every one of the best players of all time participating. The "underachiever" was a single better-than-average Hall of Famer!

Unsurprisingly, such an exciting new deck caught on like wildfire in the amateur events at Worlds, and many Northeast challengers looking for the right deck to play in Sunday's Win a Car Tournament gave it a whirl. Spencer Reiss, who had won a pre-Worlds satellite in New Jersey, got his build directly from Chapin at the end of Day One. After numerous 8-man practice events, Spencer went into the Win a Car event 13–2 with the new deck, winning quite a few side events.

So will Dragonstorm remain the best deck to play?

Like many metagame breakers, Dragonstorm may not be the right choice for the long haul. Chapin said that besides having several of the best players of all time behind their deck, the Dragonstorm group had the power of surprise behind them. People had no idea how to play against the new build on Day One, but by Sunday, the Top 8 competitors had plenty of opportunity to test. Walking the side events it was easy to see the effect that the deck had on the metagame, even from players who were not themselves adherents. Maindeck Story Circle? It was like Masques Block Constructed 2007 at some tables. Thorn of Amethyst, Imperial Mask, and even more exotic solutions peppered the 8-mans.

Here are a couple of other tools, for existing decks: Our newly crowned World Champion Uri Peleg played three Riftsweepers in his sideboard. Riftsweeper is one of the best cards against Dragonstorm because it can trump Wheel of Fate while helping out against the more common Rift Bolts and Lotus Blooms. Stopping any suspend card while setting up a fast threat can be pretty good, but Dragonstorm almost needs Wheel of Fate to escape heavy discard.

Andre Coimbra suggested Mistbind Clique, a card Faeries is already playing. "You can tap them out, including the Spinerock Knoll, in response to their third spell, before they've dealt seven damage." I know I would be frustrated on the wrong end of that one!

Peleg's deck really loves a first-turn accelerator. From Birds of Paradise he can move to Doran, Ohran Viper, or even Hypnotic Specter!

As with a couple of the top decks from this event, Uri played not one but two planeswalkers, both the near-universal Garruk Wildspeaker and the arguably more powerful Liliana Vess. This helped to give him the ability to attack the opponent from numerous angles. Doran actually improves Ohran Viper, making the already dangerous heir to Ophidian a virtual 3/3. Tarmogoyf gets better than ever, going to *+1/*+1 from */*+1 (at the very least giving it the ability to smash another Tarmogoyf to death); even Birds of Paradise starts hitting in the sky, going positively Cloud Sprite. He can swarm or Overrun with Garruk Wildspeaker, finish with Profane Command, or dial it back to 1998 with a black-green "Living Death" care of A Villainess.

Profane Command is some kind of a versatile endgame spell. It allows you to win Fireball-style to the face, win evasively from the Red Zone, or basically entwine a Barbed Lightning (or get even bigger).

My split between these two archetypes (Black-Green Mid-range versus Elves) is fairly arbitrary. For the Midrange decks I basically chose the ones with Ohran Viper and more planeswalkers, and for the Elf decks I went with the decks that have Wren's Run Vanquishers and Imperious Perfects.

These decks have many cards in common and function in similar fashion. The Elf decks are more proactive. They can go Llanowar Elves, Vanquisher, Perfect 1-2-3, or, given an accelerator, attack with Mirri the Cursed (!!!) in the sky on the third.

The Midrange decks have a variety of threats that they can bring to bear. Some are high-end Elves like van Heeswijk's Nath of the Gilt-Leaf or Huber's Masked Admirers (still awesome in the late game). Others are the six (!) planeswalkers in the latter. Basically, these decks can attack the opponent from several different angles, taking cards with Nath and Thoughtseize, obviously dominating the Red Zone with crazy threats like Tarmogoyf, or finish long from behind a wall of chump blockers with Profane Command. They can threaten early with Ohran Viper to get ahead in the short term, or jam into a tremendous attrition advantage with the nearly inviolate Masked Admirers. Basically all of these decks have a potential ace against beatdown in Loxodon Warhammer, and all of them play a hefty amount of creature kill. Subtly, the Warhammer can be key against Dragonstorm, too. While that deck is powerful, it is not infinite, and a little life gain can make some games impossible to win with burn.

The Mannequin Deck

Last, but not least, an update to the Mannequin deck... Kotaro Otsuka2007 Worlds Top 8

Otsuka's version differs in a couple of places from the decks we have seen coming out of States / Champs or Grand Prix–Krakow. In addition to a little mana acceleration, Kotaro has a real way to say "No" in Cryptic Command, giving the deck a little more play up against true control or combo.

One half of the Sliver Kids backed up their PT victory with a strong 5-0 Standard start Day One. Chris went with a mid-range green-red deck. This version echoes the "big mana" of previous versions but adds a Snow sub-theme for Skred and Scrying Sheets. Even at the end of the weekend, many top Pros were advocating Green-Red Big Snow; just keep in mind that most consider it a dog to the potentially overwhelmingly powerful Dragonstorm.

Doubtless these decks have already affected your local Standard tournaments and have probably been played against you on Magic Online.

As a fan of the game, I am overjoyed to see some of the new decks that came out of this year's Worlds. The updates to the black-green decks, the surprise rise of Dragonstorm, and the steady performance of Mannequin, even in a slightly altered form, show that the format is still wide open: You can successfully play an established deck or approach a tournament with the knowledge that there is still room for innovation. by Mike Flores